Instructions

ZOOM IN by clicking on the page. A slider will appear, allowing you to adjust your zoom level. Return to the original size by clicking on the page again.

MOVE the page around when zoomed in by dragging it.

ADJUST the zoom using the slider on the top right.

ZOOM OUT by clicking on the zoomed-in page.

SEARCH by entering text in the search field and click on "In This Issue" or "All Issues" to search the current issue or the archive of back issues
respectively.
.

PRINT by clicking on thumbnails to select pages, and then press the
print button.

SHARE this publication and page.

ROTATE PAGE allows you to turn pages 90 degrees clockwise or counterclockwise.Click on the page to return to the original orientation. To zoom in on a rotated page, return the page to its original orientation, zoom in, and
then rotate it again.

CONTENTS displays a table of sections with thumbnails and descriptions.

ALL PAGES displays thumbnails of every page in the issue. Click on
a page to jump.

Greymouth Star
Opinion/Features
4 - Thursday, July 2, 2015
We appreciate the value of the Letters to the Editor
column as a public forum for West Coasters and
welcome your opinion and suggestions.
Letters may be submitted by post, fax or e-mail and
must include your name, address, phone number
and — except for e-mails — your signature. Noms
de plume are not accepted.
Please keep your letters honest, respectful and
within 300 words. Letter writers will generally not
be published more often than weekly. The Editor
reserves the right to edit or not publish letters,
especially those that are offensive or too long.
Post to PO Box 3, Greymouth, fax to 768 6205 or
e-mail to editor@greystar.co.nz
uLetters to the editor
1881 - US President James Garfield is shot
by Charles J Guiteau in Washington and dies
two months later.
1947 - An object crashes near Roswell, New
Mexico. The Army Air Force insisting it was
a weather balloon, but eyewitness
accounts give rise to speculation it
might have been an alien spacecraft.
1961 - American novelist Ernest
Hemingway shoots himself dead at
his home in Ketchum, Idaho.
1964 - US President Lyndon B
Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act
against racial discrimination.
1966 - France explodes atomic bomb at a
Pacific atoll in first of six tests.
1973 - Death of Betty Grable, US actress,
singer and World War Two pin-up girl whose
films included How To Marry A Millionaire,
Down Argentine Way and Tin Pan Alley.
1997 - Oscar winning US actor James
Stewart dies in California, at age 89.
2004 - Marlon Brando, the reclusive
Oscar-winning star of The Godfather and
On the Waterfront who was hailed as one of
the most influential actors of his generation,
dies aged 80.
uWest Coast yesteryear
uToday in history
Sir Charles Tupper, Canadian prime minister
(1822-1915); Sir William Bragg, British
scientist and Nobel laureate (1862-
1942); King Olaf V of Nor way
(1903-1991); Sir Alec Douglas-
Home, British Prime Minister
(1903-1995); Imelda Marcos,
former Philippines first lady (1929-
); Ron Silver, US actor (1946-2009);
Roy Bittan, US musician (1949-);
Jerry Hall, US model-actress (1956-
); Jimmy McNichol, US actor (1961-); Lindsay
Lohan, US actress (1986-).
“The soul has more diseases than the body.”
— Henry Wheeler Shaw, US author
(1818-1885).
“ Worship the Lord with gladness; come into
His presence with singing.” — (Psalm 100.2).
The last fully
fledged cooper at the
Westland Breweries
has left. He is Mr
Mer v Johnson who ser ved his apprenticeship
under veteran cooper Nick Christie. Mr
Johnson has left the brewery to start out in
business on his own.
He can remember seven or eight years
ago when the company had an estimated
£21,000 worth of wooden kegs. He had been
disappointed when aluminium barrels had
come into general use. About three years ago
he had started driving trucks and tankers and
being general handyman.
Mr Johnson said he found coopering very
rewarding but hard work. He said he had
specialised in wet, as opposed to dry tallow
coopering.
Between Thursday, July 22 and Sunday,
celebrations will be held to mark 100 years of
Methodism in Hokitika. Four former ministers
are attending the celebrations, together with
many former members of the congregation
who are travelling for the occasion.
Rev George S Harper, the first minister, was
born in Yorkshire and came to New Zealand
in 1865. On account of his special gifts he was
appointed to Hokitika where he ser ved for a
year and after wards pioneered Methodism on
the Thames goldfields.
This morning the medical practitioner at
Runanga, Dr P Murray left the colliery town
and, as a direct result, between 500 and 600
miners in the district downed tools. The men
decided not to work in the absence of a doctor.
Dr Murray is not expected back till late on
Monday, and this morning indications were
that the mines would remain idle until then.
uToday’s birthdays
uFood for thought
uFaith
Printed and published by the
Greymouth Evening Star Co Limited
3 Werita Street, PO Box 3, Greymouth
Phone
03 769 7900 (office)
769 7913 (editorial)
768 6205 (fax)
office@greystar.co.nz
Editor
Paul Madgwick
editor@greystar.co.nz
Sports Editor
Viv Logie
sport@greystar.co .nz
Chief Reporter
Laura Mills
lauram@greystar.co .nz
Reporters
03 769 7913
Hokitika
03 755 8422
Reporters
Betty
Grable
1965
Imelda
Marcos
Healy’s view
Chris Trotter
If it was a school, what did we learn?
Flying back to Auckland, after three frigid
days in D unedin, that is what I wanted to
know. Were any of us any wiser about the
past, present and future of New Zealand
foreign policy? Well, yes and no. There had
been presentations that contained material
which many attendees were surprised to
learn. Like New Zealand ’s proud record
of support for the Palestinian cause at
the United Nations. I had no idea we had
been willing to defy the United States
and Israel quite so often. For the most
part, however, the University of Otago’s
Foreign Policy School was not so much
about learning new things as it was about
reaffirming old things.
Fifty years ago the idea that New
Zealanders deserved a chance to be
schooled in the theory and practice of
foreign policy was both new and vaguely
subversive. The conduct of diplomacy
and the formulation of foreign policy
has for centuries been more or less the
exclusive preserve of the executive branch
of government. That the Department
of University Extension was proposing
to subject this elite process to academic
exposition and debate would have struck
many as not merely unorthodox but even
a little risky.
University Extension had, itself,
grown out of the movement for the
democratisation of higher education,
represented in the 1930s by the Workers’
Educational Association. Now, in 1966,
barely 12 months after a very reluctant
Keith Holyoake had agreed to join the
US and Australia in South Vietnam,
the department ’s Arnold Entwisle was
proposing to induct ordinary citizens into
the mysteries and complexities of foreign
policy. No wonder the Department of
External Affairs felt it advisable to ‘enrol’
a staff member or two in Mr Entwisle’s
“school”.
So the battle lines were drawn. On the
one hand, the democratisers: determined
to encourage public questioning of, and
participation in, the formation of New
Zealand foreign policy. On the other,
the professionals: elite defenders of the
Crown’s prerogatives and uncompromising
protectors of her secrets. Over the 50 years
of the Foreign Policy School’s existence,
these two fundamental and contradictory
impulses have vied with one another for
supremacy. There have been times when it
seemed that the annual two-day colloquia
were convened for no better purpose than
to explain the ways of Ministry of Foreign
Affairs and Trade’s gods to ordinary men.
Through half a century, however, the
impulse towards democratisation and
public participation has maintained a
critical presence.
So much so that the professionals are
now quite happy to cite the achievements
of the popular movements inspired by
this country’s foreign policy choices as
evidence of New Zealand’s “independent ”
national temperament. That the
campaigns against New Zealand’s
participation in the Vietnam War; the
relationship with apartheid South Africa;
and the reliance on nuclear “deterrence”
and the Anzus alliance for her national
security, were all regarded with deep
suspicion (if not outright hostility)
by the ‘professionals’ of those Cold
War years has, conveniently, been
forgotten.
But, as Professor Kevin Clements,
chairman of the National Centre for
Peace and Conflict Studies at the
University of Otago (and a long time
attendee of the Foreign Policy School)
told us on Sunday morning, “ There is no
national identity outside the people.” The
New Zealand character, he said, had been
“ born out of movements” and “shaped by
struggle”.
If we are regarded as egalitarian, it is
only because the struggles of our labour
movement made us so. If we’re “nuclear
free”, it is only because the grass-roots
Nuclear-Free New Zealand movement ’s
astonishing reach and intensity made
it impossible for the fourth Labour
government to be anything else.
Over its 50 years, the Foreign Policy
School has played its part in educating
and inspiring many of the key participants
in the dramatic foreign policy shifts of
New Zealand’s post-war history. As it
contemplates its next 50 years, however,
misgivings must multiply. The foreign
policy upheavals of the post-war era
were, pre-eminently, the achievement of
the baby-boom generation. But as the
boomers’ hair whitens, their places in the
front ranks of social change are not being
filled by a new generation of idealistic
activists.
Indeed, after 50 years of struggle, it is
the professionals who now seem to have
the edge over the democratisers. Maybe
that is the lesson to take home: that if
the people stop making their own foreign
policy, somebody else will make it for
them.
Chris Trotter is a left-wing media
commentator.
Opinion
Who makes New Zealand’s foreign policy?
Paris
It may have slipped from its golden
age into its golden years, but two
decades into the internet era the fax
machine is still, perhaps surprisingly,
holding its place in many offices.
While it has been reduced to a small
player in the rapidly growing world
of digital communications, “millions
of people still use fax machines daily
worldwide and probably will continue
to do so in the near future”, said
Jonathan Coopersmith, an associate
professor at Texas A and M University,
who has written a book on the history
of the once ubiquitous office machine.
Even more surprising, people and
companies continue to buy new fax
machines.
“Sales are dropping regularly due
to emails, but the market is far from
disappearing,” said Nicolas Cintre,
deputy director in France for Japanese
company Brother, the market leader in
fax machines.
Around 20 million fax terminals were
sold in 2005, manufacturers estimate,
while sales today are on the order of
several million.
“The market is holding up. Those who
predicted the death of the fax 10 years
ago were wrong,” said Cintre.
Part of the reason for the machine’s
sur vival is an attachment among “older
generations” who spent most of their
careers using it, he said.
“Some habits are hard to break.”
It is considered by some as a tool for
older employees reluctant to learn new
technologies,
but the fact
that it embraces
handwriting
— in particular
signatures —
has also helped
the fax avoid
obsolescence.
“Fax machines allow sending signed
documents, which are considered as
originals, which is not the case with
e-mail,” said Jean Champagne, head
of Sagemcom Canada, the unit of the
communications equipment company
that markets fax systems.
Coopersmith noted that “in most
countries, faxing is concentrated in
certain areas such as banking, real estate,
legal communications and medicine —
where a written signature is necessary.”
Regulations may in fact require faxing
in some countries, he added.
Champagne also pointed out that
faxes offer advantages in terms of
confidentiality and security, another
reason why the machines remain
popular in the legal and medical fields.
“It is nearly impossible to intercept fax
transmissions. Documents cannot be
manipulated,” he said.
The fax is increasingly being wrapped
into “multi-function” or “all-in-one”
machines that are gaining popularity in
the market.
So even if fax machines eventually
disappear, the fax function will endure
in other devices in homes and offices.
— AFP
Fax machine still holding
its place in the office
Lawrence Hurley
T
he United States Supreme
Court this week ruled that
a drug used by Oklahoma
as part of its lethal injection
procedure does not violate
the US Constitution’s ban
on cruel and unusual punishment, dealing a
setback to opponents of the death penalty.
The court, in a 5-4 decision with its
conser vative justices in the majority,
handed a loss to three inmates who
objected to the use of a sedative called
midazolam, saying it cannot achieve
the level of unconsciousness required
for surgery, making it unsuitable for
executions.
Justice Samuel Alito wrote on behalf of
the court that the inmates had, among
other things, failed to show that there
was an alternative method of execution
available that would be less painful.
In a dissenting opinion, liberal Justice
Stephen Breyer said the court should
consider whether the death penalty itself is
constitutional. He was joined by one of his
colleagues, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
The three-drug process used by
Oklahoma prison officials has been under
scrutiny since the April 2014 botched
execution of convicted murderer Clayton
Lockett. He could be seen twisting on the
gurney after death chamber staff failed to
place the intravenous line properly.
Inmates Richard Glossip, John Grant and
Benjamin Cole challenged the procedure.
Glossip arranged for his employer to
be beaten to death. Grant stabbed a
correctional worker to death. Cole killed
his nine-month-old daughter.
The main question before the nine
justices was whether the use of midazolam
violates the Constitution’s Eighth
Amendment prohibition on cruel and
unusual punishment.
“I believe it highly likely that the death
penalty violates the Eighth Amendment,”
Breyer wrote.
Justice Antonin Scalia responded to
Breyer in a separate concurring opinion.
Scalia said Breyer’s arguments were full
of “internal contradictions” and were
“gobbledy-gook.”
The case did not address the
constitutionality of the death penalty in
general, but it brought fresh attention to
the ongoing debate over whether the death
penalty should continue in the United
States at a time when most developed
countries have abandoned it. During the
oral argument in April, conser vative Justice
Samuel Alito said the challenge to the
drug was part of a “guerrilla war” against
the death penalty.
Lawyers for the inmates say midazolam
is not approved for use in painful surgeries
and should not be used in the death
chamber because it cannot maintain a
coma-like unconsciousness, potentially
leaving inmates in intense pain from lethal
injection drugs that halt breathing and stop
the heart.
The drug has been used in executions in
Oklahoma, F lorida, Ohio and Arizona.
Oklahoma maintains the drug is effective.
Oklahoma’s lawyers said in court papers
the case was a “full-throated attack” on
the State’s ability to implement death
sentences.
Oklahoma’s governor, Mary Fallin, in
April signed a law allowing the State
to use nitrogen gas as an alternative
execution method if the Supreme Court
ruled against the State or drugs became
unavailable.
The Supreme Court in 1976 in a
case called Gregg v. Georgia reinstated
the death penalty in America, finding
that its use did not constitute cruel
and unusual punishment. Oklahoma
in 1977 then became the first state to
adopt lethal injection as a means of
execution, according to the Death Penalty
Information Centre.
Thirty-one of the 50 US states have the
death penalty. In recent years, it has been
abolished in Nebraska (in 2015), Maryland
(2013), Connecticut (2012), Illinois (2011),
New Mexico (2009), New Jersey (2007)
and New York (2007), according to the
Death Penalty Information Centre.
This marked the second death penalty
ruling by the court this month. In a 5-4
decision on June 18, the justices gave a
convicted cop killer on Louisiana’s death
row a chance to avert execution, ruling
that the man was eligible for a hearing on
whether he is intellectually disabled.
Nebraska last month became the first
Republican-dominated state in more than
40 years to abolish capital punishment as
legislators overrode the governor’s veto of a
bill repealing the death penalty.
Public support for capital punishment
has fallen to its lowest point in four
decades although a majority of Americans
still support it, according to Pew Research
Centre sur vey released in April. It found
56% in favour of the death penalty for
people convicted of murder, with 38%
opposed.
Pew said that in a 1996 survey, 78%
favoured the death penalty while just 18%
were opposed. — Reuters
The gurney in the execution chamber at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, Oklahoma.
Execution challenge fails